Visual Essay By: Connor Clowes

Raymond Carver

Thesis Statement Through his short stories, Raymond Carver portrays the ways in which people deal with their differences of opinion; however, none of their ways were effective in solving the problem.

First Topic Sentences In the short story “Bicycles, Muscles, Cigarettes” the conflict over what happened to the missing bike, was becoming a war of words, and the fathers turned it into a fist fight, but even after the fists flew the bike was still missing.

Quotes “He moved out of the bushes and lunged at the man where he stood on the porch. They fell heavily onto the lawn. They rolled onto the lawn, Hamilton wrestling Berman onto his back and coming down hard with his knees on the man’s biceps. He had Berman by the collar now and began to pound his head against the lawn..” (Carver, 29) “You get home Roger,” Hamilton said, moistening his lips. “I mean it,” he said, “get going!” Roger and Kip moved out to the sidewalk. Hamilton stood in the doorway and looked at Berman, who was crossing the living room with his son.” (Carver, 29)

Second Topic Sentence In “Gazebo” the couple, who run a hotel, are fighting about the husband cheating on his wife but the story just turns into how their hotel started off doing quite well and is now struggling.

Quotes “Holly took care of the books. She was good with figures, and she did most of the renting of the units. She liked people, and people liked her back. I saw the grounds, mowed the grass and cut the weeds, kept the swimming pool clean, did the small repair jobs.” (Carver, 140) “The I go, “Holly these things, we’ll look back on them too. We’ll go ‘Remember the motel with all that crud in the pool?’” (Carver, 146)

Third Topic Sentence Even though the couples in “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” are talking about love, they can never seem to come to a common consensus.

Quotes In the story, the four characters debate the nature of love, only to find that their ideas are wildly different—instead of love, they seem to be talking about jealousy, misunderstanding, and pain. In fact, their conversation underscores their alienation from one another. Some commentators perceive each couple as representing a different stage of love: Nick and Laura are in an early, idealistic period, while Mel and Terri are the older, more cynical couple. “Mel said, ‘I was going to tell you about something. I mean, I was going to prove a point. You see, this happened a few months ago, but it’s still going on right now, and it ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we’re talking about when we talk about love.’ “Come on now,” Terri said. “Don’t talk like you’re drunk if you’re not drunk.” (Carver, 178)